A Joke
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Avatar: Awakened Gamer
🕑 Added 2022-05-05 10:22:14 +0000 UTCChapter 121
…
Sokka could feel his heart beating crazily, and the strange chilling heat in the air. Despite the weather being rather pleasant for today, no cold winds or dry breeze.
He stood atop an ostrich horse and at the front of the battle. Hundreds of people stood behind him, he couldn't call them soldiers, because they weren't that.
With Appa and Aang to his right, and June to his left atop Nyla, her pet.
In comparison to those two, Sokka's ostrich horse wasn't that intimidating. But he didn't need to be intimidating.
Give someone no way out, and they will fight. Everyone here knew the gist of things, they were surrounded by mountains and the Fire Nation had blocked their escape routes.
"You did well," Sokka glanced toward Aang. Since he had spilled the beans to the public, he had to use that to his advantage. "The majority of the elderly, children and sick have been moved to the Great Rumble arena, right?"
Aang nodded, his hands clenching and shaking slightly in nervousness.
'Poor kid, he seems nervous as hell. He is probably thinking something stupid about how this is all his fault.'
Sokka would give him some encouraging words to accompany him. But now wasn't the right time exactly to have leisure talks and mice words to say.
They were fighting around ten thousand Fire Nation soldiers while they had only a little more than a hundred earthbenders, and seven hundred non-bending soldiers.
There had originally been over ten thousand soldiers, but they had to create a perimeter around the town's mountains. So the Beifong Family doesn't escape.
The enemy outnumbered them by more than 10 to 1.
Sokka knew that any head-on fight was suicide. It didn't take a genius to know that.
'There are some advantages he has on our side too. Gaoling City has natural defenses in the form of being surrounded by mountains. Behind there's also a forested swamp, so that is also somewhat of a natural defense too. The bulk of the army can come only from one direction and they can't surround us.'
Gaoling City had two entrances, one from the back, which was a forested area. With tall trees and swamps. The other was by the fields, next to a river.
If he was a betting man, he would assume they would attack from the fields. That's due to the metallic tanks they had, those things wouldn't do that well in swamps.
Though Sokka didn't have to bet on it, he used his Map and saw a clump of red dots heading for Gaoling from the fields.
But some red dots also were along the river, meaning they were using ships and attacking from the rear.
Sokka could see that the general in charge wasn't stupid. Which was never a good thing for an enemy to be smart. He had kinda hoped the person in charge was some guy who had earned that place due to his family being nobles.
He had hoped the man would split his army, and attack from both sides, but that didn't seem to be the case. Only about a thousand of them were going to attack from the rear.
'Even with only 9000 to fight, they still outnumber us 1 to 10. With Katara as a healer in the back, we can get our soldiers battle-ready even after an injury. But the risks are still there.'
Katara had been very reluctant to only handle healing, but that was what he needed her to do.
It wasn't the worry of her being injured in the battle that Sokka put her there… Maybe a little. But it was still a sound strategic decision.
Sokka glanced behind him, the soldier's faces were resolute. He had one thing going for him, his soldiers were in the face of death and there was no escape. So they wouldn't cower like most.
"We're surrounded," Sokka stated loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Some of the soldiers shook in fear at the reminder and he could see the terror in their eyes.
Even though the bigger danger was the army with more numbers in front of them, the one-thousand soldier army attempting to outflank them was no joke either.
Sokka remembered from his past life a certain strategy.
Napoleon was constantly at war with the Kingdoms and Empires of the time. Even when outnumbered, he always came out on top.
The one thing he had to his advantage was speed, and Sokka had gathered all of the ostrich horses. One hundred fifty ostrich horses, most of them manned by earthbenders.
'If I fight in one battle, I can't be on the other side. Water Clones aren't the best critical thinkers.'
His eyes wandered toward his right and left. Aang had the power needed to hold that number of people back, especially with some earthbenders to help. But the Avatar didn't have the heart to kill, and this was war.
There were no ways Aang could kill or use some ruthless anything-goes strategy to win the battle.
Sokka's eyes then wandered toward June, she was perfect for the job. Their eyes met for a split second, and she nodded, a small almost unnoticeable encouraging smile on her face.
Sokka felt his heart clench a little. Sending her back there, the chances of her death were very high. If she listened at all that is. If Sokka was in her place and given such an order, he would abandon camp immediately.
'Well, not like I have another choice. Hopefully, she will stay, or else Gaoling will burn by the time we come back. If we win our side of the battle.' Sokka contemplated.
“June, take thirty earthbenders on ostrich horses and delay the army that’s coming up the river. Within the forest, use speed to your advantage, never fight directly, only hold them back.” Sokka explained the general strategy, he didn’t have faith in June winning this fight, only holding them up long enough before he could turn the main army around.
June stared at him and nodded. “Promise you will live,” she said with a smirk on her face.
Sokka chuckled and breathed an internal sigh of relief. He noticed something deep within her eyes, the way she looked at him, like when someone sees a young sick child. What was that for?
Water ever was, he hoped she wouldn't abandon him in this time of crisis. Though he wouldn't be surprised if she did.
…
Not long after, June set off and only Aang, Toph, and Katara were left within Sokka’s council.
“Toph, I want you to go and hollow out these parts of the underground and could them in. Also create hollow points here, here, and here.” Sokka explained to them with a Map in front, well, a realistic Map made from Toph’s senses.
“There are some badger mole tunnels within the mountains,” said Toph. “Just to let you know.”
“Thanks,” Sokka nodded, wondering if he could use such things.
***
'When did I grow so soft?' June wondered as she took on a dangerous mission for someone she hadn’t even known for that long.
Sokka had that charisma to him that made people want to help him. Fighting in this kind of battle, while sick, and close to death. She wondered how he did such a thing. He never showed an ounce of fear or any hesitation.
This was a disastrous battle, something that couldn’t be won no matter what. June knew it.
The smell of the forest was pleasant, and as they moved through one of the earth benders explained to her the local terrain. "The swamps aren't that deep in this area. The trees are tall and we could hide up there if needed. But earthbending from up there is next to impossible."
Nyla used her smell to detect where the attacker would be and it seemed like they had just gotten off the ships. The fiery smell clinging to their armor.
Looking around for anything to use, June was reminded of something Sokka explained to her. She got an idea.
“Wait here, don’t go confronting the enemy. No matter what I say,” she ordered her soldiers.
Well, calling them soldiers was an overstatement, as they were just some rabble earthbenders who didn’t have an ounce of military training before coming out here.
She walked out while on Nyla’s back and went to confront the soldiers by herself.
As soon as she came out of the forest, hundreds of firebenders turned toward her with their fists raised. They almost attacked when one of the commanders (she assumed) raised his hand and ordered them to stop. “Who are you?”
June knew she looked like a Fire Nation citizen, well, she might be. Her mother didn’t have a reputable reputation in her hometown.
“Glory to the Fire Lord!” June yelled out fanatically while getting off Nyla and bowing on one knee. “I am an informant from the Fire Lord’s humble servant and am here to help you navigate through these thick forests.”
The man in charge was broad-shouldered and big, with a long beard to accomplish it.
June felt her heart start to beat crazily. She had left herself in an exposed position, and wouldn't be able to dodge any attack they would throw at her.
“Why should we believe you? Get out of the way woman, before we burn you," he frowned in suspicion. Then a smirk came to his face, and a flame appeared above his hand. "Fire can be quite uncontrollable."
‘Fuck, it didn’t work. Dying by burning didn't sound good at all. Should I just run away?’
June could feel a bead of sweat roll down her forehead as the sun beat on her pale face. Her stomach churned as she glanced at each of the firebenders ready to burn her alive.
This ruthlessness was one of the reasons the Fire Nation has almost conquered the world.
These soldiers truly seemed to believe what they were doing was the right thing.
Clenching her teeth, June sent Nyla a look, the animal that had helped her through so many years.
It was now or never, thousands of people depended on her. She didn't want to die, and she wasn't going to. But for some reason, her gut told her that if she ran away now, sick or not, Sokka would hunt her down and keep his promise of a painful death.
Die by fire, or die by Sokka? Which was scarier?
'I really shouldn't have accepted that mission to hunt him down. If I was a believer in Karma, this would be my retribution for all the horrible things I have done throughout my life.'
She wasn't used to such a feeling at all. Her heart grew heavier. Living her life as a tough thug and bounty hunter had been a blessing in disguise.
June sighed, she knew how ruthless Sokka could be, and didn't want to test his nerves on this.
"If he dies in this battle, I'm going to kill him. This would have all been for nothing," June muttered under her breath, trying to psyche herself up for what she was about to do.
It wasn't working as well as she would have liked it to. She was still scared as hell.
But… she took out her whip and cracked it, fire was thrown at her. Her hand and midsection burned, but she wrapped her whip around the commander's neck and pulled with all her strength.
"Fuck my life!" She yelled out, trying to distract herself from the pain.
*****
A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update this. I was contemplating rewriting certain scenes (and I did some). But since this is a complicated part of the story, I want each character to play to their personality.
P.S: So I've been rereading the story to see how Sokka, June, and others would react to this.
